


Sonnets of Magical Interference

by abigail89



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romantic Comedy, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:10:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abigail89/pseuds/abigail89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry receives some strange notes about his love life, or lack thereof.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sonnets of Magical Interference

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Harry & Ron FQF in 2008 from this prompt: #4 “Dumbledore’s thoughts about Harry and Ron.”
> 
> Dedicated to the wonderful and luscious magicofisis.

*~*  


 _It’s time to get up! You’re going to be late! It’s time to get up! You’re going to---_

Harry Potter’s hand closed around the screeching alarm clock and flung it across the bedroom; it hit the closet door, and the alarming message died an inglorious death.

Harry rolled over and groaned. Despite its annoying nature, he knew the alarm clock was right: he did need to awaken to go to work. With another groan he placed his feet on the floor and held his head in his hands--

His hands, hands that in his nocturnal meanderings rubbed all over a fit, muscular body; hands that tweaked nipples, taut and red; hands that grasped a hard, weeping cock, eliciting the most amazing moans of ecstasy from—

He shook his head. _Can’t go there_ , he thought. _Not gonna go there._

For months Harry Potter’s dreams had been filled with images of hot, sweaty, bloody wonderful sex with his best mate -- his very sexy, very straight best friend, housemate, and professional partner.

He sighed again as he pulled himself to a standing position and shuffled to the loo where he looked into the mirror.

 **Talk to him.**

Harry had expected to see the tangle of spiky black hair and blood shot eyes, so the three words that were written on the mirror surprised him. He scrubbed his hands over his eyes and face and tried again. **Talk to him.** Yes, those were actual words, a real sentence written on his bathroom mirror.

“Ron?” he called out. He looked around, half-expecting his housemate to jump out of the shower stall at him, or perhaps from the laundry basket behind him. But he was most decidedly alone.  


Looking back into the mirror, the words had faded. “I’m going loony,” he muttered to himself, and he turned and entered the shower. “Besides Ron would write ‘Talk to me’, wouldn’t he?”  


 **No, you’re not** appeared on the mirror, followed by **Not necessarily**.

After his shower, Harry opened the front door to retrieve the sweating bottle of milk on the porch. A piece of paper was rubber-banded around it; Harry swore softly at the stupidity of the milkman as he pulled the band off. “He always sends the bill in the post. What the hell was he thinking—“

He opened the paper. It was white parchment, not ordinary Muggle paper. **You’ve always trusted him with your life. Trust him now with your heart** written in distinctive red ink.  


Harry looked around. He pulled his wand out of his bathrobe pocket and held it up, casting “ _Finite Incantatum totalis_ ,” one of his favorite spells that generally disrupted any Disillusionment and concealing spells enough to reveal the fact someone was using one.

Nothing.

“Huh,” he muttered.

Closing the door, he looked at the note in his hand again. _The handwriting isn’t familiar; looks pretty generic, actually_. He laid it on the kitchen table and cast several Dark Magic detecting spells, all of which revealed nothing. It was an innocent note.

Except that it wasn’t. He opened the box of Tasty Owl Oaties, and as he poured the little O's into the bowl, another note fell out. "Fucking hell!" Harry exclaimed, shaking the parchment free of cereal and unfolding it: **He'll never abandon you**. He looked around frantically. "All right, it's a great joke, Ron," he called out to his roommate. "I don't know what it's about, but it's a good one!"

Silence greeted him. But then he remembered that Ron was visiting his current girlfriend. Or, was he visiting his parents? Harry shrugged. Obviously, Ron wasn’t the mysterious messenger.

As he ate his breakfast, he puzzled over the message again, thinking hard about the handwriting. It wasn’t Ron’s. Or George’s. Or Hermione’s. So who would send him a note . . . **Trust him with your heart**. Suddenly, he blushed and dropped his spoon. “Shit!” he exclaimed.

God, who had he told?? He was sure he had not ever mentioned his crush to anyone, not even to a persistent Hermione. She had taken to quizzing him on the mornings when he had had the most . . . explicit dreams. He was also sure he hadn’t said anything during the twice-weekly meet-ups at local pubs with fellow Aurors and Gryffindors. He knew he wasn’t a spill-all-the-beans kind of drunk, nor was he a lovey-dovey drunk. He was definitely a pass-out-while-keeping-his-dignity kind of drunk. Any number of images in the _Daily Prophet_ had proved that.

He was still thinking about who he could’ve possibly given any clues to about the current state of his sexual quandary when, as he fished around under the bed for the other shoe, he found the magazine he’d been looking for for a week.

 **It’s quite alright to love a man.**

He dropped the magazine as if it were on fire. _Fuck, man!_ He again looked around frantically. Who was doing this to him? He picked up the magazine and looked at it more carefully. He still didn’t recognize the handwriting, so he took a deep breath and decided to calmly examine it. It was the familiar white parchment and red ink; it contained no Dark Magic. Someone was obviously pranking him. But as he read it again, he couldn’t help but remark, “Well, of course it’s fine to love guy. Dean and Seamus are great together. It’s just not cool to be in love with your best mate who only has eyes for birds. That’s the problem here. Can you help me with that?”

The note on the magazine lay unchanged. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”

He continued to dress when suddenly an owl appeared at his bedroom window. He groaned, thinking it was a Howler from his boss, telling him he had missed another early morning meeting. The owl hooted softly at him—definitely _not_ one of his boss’s owls—and politely held out his leg. “Thank you,” Harry told the owl, which then turned and flew off.

He unrolled the parchment. Again, white parchment and red ink: **Telling him you love him will not scare him off.**

“This is really weird,” Harry said, backing away from the fluttering parchment.  
He grabbed his robes and backpack, and Disapparated.

*~*

“Hey, Harry,” Ron said, passing by the desk. “How’s it going?”

“Why? What have you heard?” Harry replied, blushing nervously. “How do you know? And where have you been?”

“Take it easy, mate,” Ron said. “I haven’t heard anything about anything. But if there’s something you want to tell me—“

“NO!” Harry groaned, realizing he’d shouted. Several of his fellow Aurors looked at him. “Nope, not me. I don’t know anything either.”

“Well, you’d better know something seeing as you’re leading the case analysis in about five minutes,” Ron said, taking a sip of coffee from the mug he was holding. “I’ll try to cover anything you missed in the field report section, but you’ve done all the head work on this one.”

“Oh, right,” Harry said, relieved. “I have the report right here.” He pulled a folder out of his backpack. “For once I wrote it early and did—“

 **He probably knows how you feel about him** was written across the folder in the bright red ink.

“Really?” Ron said. “Who should know how you feel about him who?”

“Uh, it’s nothing.” Harry yanked the report out of the offending folder. “I need to duplicate this before the meeting.” He rose. “I need some parchment. I’ll see you there. Thanks for the back-up. Right.” Harry fled for the supply room.

“What the fuck is going on?” Harry whispered as he banged his head against the wall in the supply room. He carelessly waved his wand over the blank parchment pieces, the spell copying his report.

He looked up at the wall. A piece of parchment with the red ink words greeted him: **You have always been able to tell him everything. Trust him**.

“Shit!” he exclaimed, jerking away as he whipped out his wand. He cast a Revealing Spell, but nothing came of it. “Dammit!” He ripped the note from the wall, which thankfully came off easily. “Who have I told? Who would know that—“

“Who would know what, Harry?” Hermione stood in the doorway, hands on hips. “What’s going on with you? Ron sent me a memo. And you know when Ron communicates with me, it must be an emergency.”

Harry cursed inwardly, and Banished the ball of parchment. “There’s nothing wrong,” he said breathlessly. “I’m fine…just, you know, a little nervous about my presentation.”

“Don’t feed me that poppycock, Harry Potter,” Hermione huffed. “I know you.” Then her demeanor softened. “What’s bothering you? I haven’t seen you this distracted since you broke up with Ginny.”

Harry cringed. The breakup with Ron’s sister had been a prolonged, gory affair; it very nearly cost him his valued relationship with the elder Weasleys. Though, when he thought about it, which he rarely did, he realized that Ron had been a paragon of support and sympathy throughout . . . “I don’t know. It’s just . . . I’ve had a lot on my mind. Did you know I’m up for a promotion to section chief?”

Hermione smiled, “I know. I’m very proud of you. You’ve worked hard and you deserve it. But you need to be sharp. Kingsley and the others are watching you closely, to judge if you’re ready for it.”

That got his attention. “I’m ready. I am.”

Hermione looked at him warmly. “You are. Harry”—she laid her hand on his arm—“you know you can tell me anything.”

He smiled warmly. “I know. You’re the best.”

She kissed his cheek, and with a final hand squeeze, she exited the small room. Harry heaved a huge sigh of relief. “So far, so good. But if it isn’t Hermione, then who can it be?”

*~*

The meeting started out well. Harry took control of the meeting; the opening section of his report was well-organized and garnered some impressed mutterings around the table.

“’It is,’” Harry read from his prepared report, “’my opinion that **If you don’t tell Ron that you’re in love with him, you’ll risk losing him**.’”

The silence in the room fell like an iron curtain. “Um…” Harry began. “No, that’s not right, it’s—“

“Something you need to get off your chest, Potter?” Roger Davies sniggered.

“No, that’s not what I wrote, it’s—“

“That’s what’s written right here, and in red ink no less,” Davies continued, laughing.  
Others around the table were shifting uncomfortably in their chairs, some chuckling behind their hands or the report. “Stop it,” Ron said quietly. “Go on, Harry.”

Harry gave him a weak nod. “Right…umm…”

Later, Harry would have no idea what he said after that moment, but somehow he got through the report and questions. He bolted from the room as soon as the Head Auror dismissed them.

“Harry!”

But Harry was in no mood to talk to Ron at that moment. He knew he had to get out else his head would explode. He grabbed his robes and the emergency Portkey he kept in his desk, and activating it, he whirled away.

*~*

The Portkey took him directly to Hogwarts. Landing on the grounds, he jogged to the western shore of the lake, the place where he did all his best thinking. He clambered onto the large rock and pulled his knees to his chest. It was here on this rock that he decided to begin, then end, his relationship with Ginny. Where he decided to become an Auror, decided to rebuild the house at Godric’s Hollow, decided that whom he really wanted to be with was Ron. It seemed that this solid rock gave him grounding, stability, surety to make the hard choices in his life.

“Mr. Potter.”

Harry raised his head. Minerva McGonagall, his dearest champion and advisor, looked on him with compassion. “Minerva!” He went to her and she embraced him kindly. They caught up on all the latest personal and Hogwarts news before she told him the reason for her appearance.

“Professor Dumbledore has sent me to fetch you, Harry.”

Harry startled. “He did? But how—“

“Perhaps it is best if you speak to him directly.”

Together, they walked up to the castle, Harry nodding in greeting to students coming from the direction of Hagrid’s hut and teaching paddock. They went into the entrance hall and up the marble staircase, fully restored after being destroyed two years hence by Voldemort’s minions. Then they reached the Headmistress’s office, guarded as always by the cheeky gargoyle.

“Tea. Earl Grey. Hot,” Minerva said clearly.

Harry grinned widely. He was one of a very small handful of Order members who knew of the stern woman’s weakness for a certain bald television star ship captain.

She stepped back. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked.

“No. This is a conversation the Headmaster wants to have with you alone for now.” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I hope you will listen closely to him.”

He nodded, and the spiraling staircase led him to the large oak door, which he opened.

“Ah, Harry!” the portrait cried out. “So good to see you, my boy. Please, please do come in and make yourself comfortable.”

Professor Albus Dumbledore gestured grandly to the limits of his portrait. Whoever had done the painting had imbued it with fantastic detail. Peppered with many of the Headmaster’s favorite little machines, books, desk accessories and whatnot, the portrait was awash in colour and textures. And seated in the middle of all the minutiae was Albus Dumbledore, painted in his resplendent purple robes ensemble.

Harry pulled up a chair and sat in front of the portrait. Dumbledore looked upon with him with great affection. “Professor, I don’t understand what--?”

“My dear Harry, I fear I must apologize to you for my intrusion into your life,” Dumbledore said, though his face conveyed no regrets at all. “But I feel that I had to do so in order to knock you out of the pickle you seem to have gotten into.”

Harry smiled at the headmaster’s use of a Muggle expression. “And just what kind of a pickle am I in, sir?” he asked politely.

“If you will permit me, dear boy, let me say that you are in a pickle about your very truest and deepest nature.” Dumbledore steepled his fingers before his smiling lips.

Harry looked at him, confused. “My truest nature? What do you mean, sir?”

Again, Dumbledore just gave him that sweetly knowing smile. While Harry enjoyed being with the older man again, the circuitous conversation made him more nervous about the real point of the visit.

A knock rang out, and Harry leapt from his seat as the large oak door opened. In walked the last person on earth he wanted to see at that moment, while his traitorous heart banged passionately in his chest.

“’lo, Harry.”

“Ron!” Harry gulped. “What are you doing here?”

“I asked him to come,” Dumbledore said. “Please do join us, Ronald. It was time you two spoke frankly with each other.”

Harry tore his gaze from Ron to the portrait. “What? What do you mean? I talk to Ron all the time. He’s my partner. I live with him. I—“

“You dream about him, don’t you?”

Harry’s eyes widened. “But—how? When did—Who have you talked to?”

Ignoring Harry’s splutterings, the old Headmaster said gently, “Ron, do you love Harry?”

Ron’s face immediately reddened and he looked away, as if he were a guilty student being called out in the midst of class. But then he smiled and looked up at the portrait, the blue in his eyes deeper. “Yeah, I do.”

“And how long has that been?”

“Long time.”

Harry continued to stare at him as if he had suddenly sprouted horns. “What? Why—“

“For the same reason you haven’t said anything before,” Ron answered. “I’ve been afraid of your reaction, afraid you’d wind up hating me, or worse, never speak to me again.” Ron glanced at him. “Despite the professor’s best effort otherwise.”

He reached into his pockets and pulled out two handfuls of small pieces of white parchment with writing in red ink.

Harry felt oddly relieved by this revelation. “It was you?” he asked the Headmaster.

“Yes, it was,” Albus Dumbledore admitted.

“But. . . how did you . . . I didn’t tell anyone,” Harry stuttered, shaking his head.

Dumbledore favoured him with a small smile. “It was mostly an educated guess,” he said, “though one based in years of observation and some gathered facts from those closest to you.”

Harry and Ron looked at each other. “Could it have been Hermione?” Harry wondered aloud. Ron shrugged.

‘Actually, it was Professor Longbottom who alerted me to your, ah, shall we say, relationship woes,” the professor said. “He told me his impressions, but I drew the conclusions myself.

“You see, Harry, Ron, I have been watching you both since you arrived here at Hogwarts over ten years ago. Imagine my joy at seeing you meet and become fast friends—two boys, from distinguished Wizarding families, but brought up in different circumstances. Your friendship mirrored very closely one that I saw develop between two young wizards in their first year.” He paused as he saw Harry’s face brighten.

“You mean the one between my father and Sirius,” Harry said.

“I suppose that is the logical relationship for you to think of, Harry,” Dumbledore said. “But no, I was thinking of the one between Sirius and Remus Lupin.”

Both Harry and Ron’s eyebrows rose into their hairlines. “Ah,” Ron said softly. “I thought there was something going on--"

"Yes, they were lovers, but more importantly they were the best of friends, boys who perfectly suited each other precisely because of their differences. One disillusioned and undisciplined; the other, quiet and compassionate. But they enjoyed a bit of devilry together. Remus reined in Sirius’s more lively tendencies, while Sirius drew out Remus’s natural humour and creativity from behind the wall of reserve he’d built. And while Remus certainly did not go looking to break school rules, some of his responsible nature rubbed off on Sirius, which I am sure prevented him from completely destroying the castle.”

  
Ron chuckled. Harry, though, knitted eyebrows together in concentration, said, “But we didn’t—“

“No, you didn’t break _every_ school rule, but you came close,” Dumbledore said lightly. Harry and Ron shifted uncomfortably. “But unlike Sirius, even on your worst days, you never did anything with malice. Mischief, perhaps, but never with destructive intent.”

“That you know of,” Ron said under his breath.

“Your parents raised you too well, Ron,” Albus said, smiling, “and you saw all too well what true mischief looks like. No, you and Harry may have broken rules, but it was always with what you believed to be altruistic motives.”

Before either could contradict him, Albus Dumbledore plowed on. “I have seen you, Harry, grow from a boy who seemingly had no control over his life into a man who very much determines his own destiny. And you, Ronald, you were a boy without direction or purpose. But you have risen above your brothers to become a man with goals and who serves the greater good without question.

“You are, the both of you, very fine wizards and Aurors, but more importantly you are good people. You put loyalty and friendship, love and justice before anything and everything. You are the very best of what it means to be _human_. Which is why I sent you those notes – to prompt you to think about yourselves for once. And each other. I have always thought, that best friends make the best lovers and life partners. So when you ended your relationships with those fine young women, and have yet to answer the siren call of other women, well, I thought—actually, Professor Longbottom was the one who gave me the thought—I saw something of myself in you.

“You are both happiest,” Dumbledore said, standing in his portrait, “when you are in each other’s company. That is very plain, and has been for a very long time. Because while you have grown into men with great responsibilities and have left behind the more impetuous and imprudent parts of your natures, you are yet still remarkably unaware of the most basic element of yourselves.”

Ron and Harry looked at him dumbfounded. Harry blinked and said, “Unaware? You mean clueless?”

“Not the word I used, but yes, to put it in the vernacular of the youth.”

Harry turned to look at Ron, who had come to sit on the desk just inches away. They burst out laughing.

“I’ll be damned,” Ron said. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called thick. Hermione did it all the time.”

“At least we’re thick together,” Harry said. He laughed quietly, then grew serious. “Sir, if I may ask you a personal question, you said you saw something of yourself in us?”

“Ah, yes. Well, there is something Rita Skeeter did get right in her otherwise fanciful biography: I did indeed fall in love in my eighteenth year with Gellert Grindelwald. It was a most heady and passionate time. And while I regret much that we did in most of those short months we spent together, I do not, and will never, regret my love for him.”

He sighed deeply. “It took time for me to admit my love for him, time we could have used more…fruitfully, rather than ignoring our feelings for one another. I do not wish for you two to make the same mistake. If you love someone, you should tell him. The world would be a far better place if we were as free with our admissions of love as we are with our condemnations and criticisms.”

Harry looked at the carpeting, his eyes growing misty. His jaw worked nervously. But then suddenly, he heard Ron say softly, “Mate, it’s always been you. Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to be with you. Just you. Scared the hell out of me when I realised it was love and not hero worship.” Harry looked at Ron at that admission. “I gotta tell ya, sometimes I really wanted it to be hero worship. But when Seamus and Dean started, you know, seeing each other, I thought, ‘Why not you and me?’ Especially after you and Ginny broke up.”

“What about you and. . . who’s that girl you were seeing?” Harry asked.

“Who? Analissa Blackburn? Oh, Merlin, no. She’s one of Gin’s friends who needed someone to scrimmage with . . . She’s the Harpies’ Keeper.”

“Ah.” Harry had a revelation. _Of course! He always went out with her with his broom and Quidditch gear. Idiot!._

As Harry was mentally berating himself, Ron touched his shoulder. “Harry, mate, not to get all mushy and shit, but I, you know, love you.”

He flashed Ron a brilliant smile. “I—I love you, too.”

“Figured that, you prat.” Ron tightened his grip on Harry’s shoulder. Warm tingles flooded Harry’s body. He instinctively moved closer.

“Well now, I do believe my role in this little subterfuge has come to an end,” Professor Dumbledore said, his blue eyes twinkling. “My final admonition to you is to go home and talk to each other.”

Ron pulled on Harry’s hand; Harry rose effortlessly from the chair and fell into his best mate’s open arms. They hugged for a long minute, not saying anything and not pounding noisily on each other’s backs. Dumbledore was pleased.

Finally, they parted. Ron may or may not have had a tear running down his cheek and Harry may or may not have wiped it away with a finger. Both were smiling. “Right. Yeah, well, I s’pose we need to get going,” Ron said, shuffling his feet as he looked around the room at all the portraits of long-dead headmasters and headmistresses who were blowing noses and giving them watery smiles.

“Thank you, Professor,” Harry said fervently. “Oh, and next time you alter one of my reports to the Auror Division, I may come back and curse your portrait.”

“Oh, I look forward to that, my dear boy! The challenge will be most gratifying,” Albus Dumbledore said fondly. “I must confess that even with my little toys here to keep me occupied, it gets a trifle boring.”

“Thanks for that, Albus,” Phineas Nigellus Black sniffed. “See if I invite you back for cribbage. Upstart. Ingrate!”

With the surge of good-natured mutterings from the other painted occupants, Harry wrapped his arms about Ron, and activated his Portkey.

*~*

Much later that night, Albus Dumbledore stole into the small painting of books and flowers in the corner of Harry Potter’s bedroom. He had felt slightly guilty about manipulating the artist to create several additional small magical portraits for him so he could travel to visit some of his favorite persons. He was sure Minerva was onto the fact that the cat painting on her sitting room wall wasn’t quite what it seemed. Arthur and Molly enjoyed conversations with him, but covered him up at night, much to his dismay. But having Hermione Granger place the painting in Harry’s home was most gratifying. That it was in the young man’s bedroom--well, it did give him pause. Occasionally. He truly only wished to assure himself the young man was content and thriving.

This night, though, sounds of soft moans and whispered declarations of passion and love filled the room. He hazarded a glance at the bed and found it occupied by two entwined naked bodies, rocking slowly and sensuously against the other.

He closed his eyes, and left the painting, and as he did, he waved his hand. Harry and Ron never saw that flash of magic that obliterated it.

  



End file.
